Five things I wish I knew before i started medical school

Hey everybody – congratulations on making it to the weekend! Tomorrow is the white coat ceremony for the first year students at Tufts. I remember it being such an exciting event for me last year, despite the nerve-wrecking experience of having to put on a coat while hundreds of people watched. Who would have though such a simple, everyday task would have made me so nervous? Anyways, in honor of the white coat ceremony I put together five lessons I’ve learned this past year:

1.You can’t learn it all. At least you can’t learn it all at once. People often use the analogy that college is like drinking from a water fountain, but medical school is like trying to drink from a fire hydrant. It’s a messy process and inevitably you’re going to spill a little. The good news is that the important material will be repeated over and over again. When we were taking basic physiology in my first year, the kidney was the bane of my existence and I went into the exam feeling like I knew absolutely nothing. Excretion, secretion, reabsorption, ascending loop and descending loop? Yeah, it was all Greek to me. Now two weeks into our second year renal block, the information finally coming together; I’m even starting to think that the kidneys are cool little organs. Repetition really is key.

2.You won’t ever forget the smell of formaldehyde. But you will get used to it. Anatomy lab felt something like an initiation into the medical community, a rite of passage. By far it was the most challenging course for me in the first year curriculum, but anatomy was also one of the most rewarding. In the dead of winter when all your friends are at holiday parties, you’ll be in the dungeon they call the lab furiously trying to separate nerves from fascia from fat. It’s morbid and tedious, but it’s a privilege nonetheless. I’ll be forever grateful to the donors and their families for their generous gifts – there really is no better way to learn anatomy than to see it and feel it for yourself. The satisfaction that comes with finally being able to communicate with other medical professionals in the “language” of anatomy makes the long hours and memorization totally worth it.

3.Your “non med school” friends will think you’re weird sometimes. I happen to think medical school is really awesome and cool, and being surrounded by other like-minded students all day it is easy to forget that most other people in the world do not think medical school is all that cool. It is amazing to finally be doing what I’ve worked so hard in the past for. In high school or college, medical school can seem like a far off and impossible goal. There are so many hoops to jump through, so many exams to take, and so many applications to fill out. To finally be in the lecture hall or the lab is really like a dream come true. So when my friends ask me “how’s school going”, I just get excited and want to tell them everything – like how interesting the renal pathology lab was or all about that weird rash I saw in clinic. I can’t help it; I am totally a science geek at heart. A word to the wise: save the nasty rash stories for your med school friends, and for everyone else a simple “I’m loving school!” will suffice.

4.Medical school is humbling. Just getting accepted into a medical school is such a huge accomplishment that it is easy to feel like you’ve made it to the top of a very tall mountain. But there’s nothing quite like the first biochemistry exam to bring you back down from the clouds and make you realize that there is still another whole mountain to climb up. Medical school is actually just the beginning of your training. “I don’t know” is a phrase that you will find yourself very familiar with early on, but remember that your professors are there to help you learn. Embrace the newness and immensity of it all; you’ll work harder than you ever have before, but you’ll also be amazed by how much you can accomplish.

5.You can still have a life. In fact, I highly encourage you to actively pursue interests and hobbies outside of school. For me that means making a commitment to staying involved with dance. I’ve been going to classes at least once a week downtown for a year now and have made so many new friends through the studio. It is nice to have a creative outlet and milestones to look forward to that don’t involve school. Sometimes when school gets really busy or I’m super stressed out, it’s tempting to bail on class or rehearsal. However in the long run, an extra hour of studying will probably not make that much of a difference for my test grades, but it makes a huge difference for my sanity.

On that note, hope you all enjoy the weekend – go out and do something fun!